Are any other sellers experiencing Extended delays shipping to Israel?

[sfor8673]

We Ship to Israel from Australia almost every day for several years. There are some delivery challenges with this destination with regards to delivery delays, but the parcels are always delivered. Services are reliable, but delivery speed is a challenge.

We have used Australia Post and DHL services in the past with DHL as our current primary carrier for international services.

Parcels are almost never delivered in <21 days.

Currently, we have a huge back-log of parcels awaiting Customs Screening due to Israeli National holiday period and local elections. Parcels shipped in September exceed 30 with only 8 delivered. The remaining 22 show no arrival scans in any system. Nothing shipped in October has been delivered yet. DHL advises there is a huge back-log as the Customs Office and the Postal service has been shut down for these holidays for almost a month. Israel Post confirm there has been minimal activity during this period but won't provide any additional data.

All our other international parcels are being delivered without delay or complications to all other regions. No problem with any other zone except Israel (which comes under USA for metrics and seller levels).

Ebay has Undelivered Item cases opening against us almost every day for Israeli Customers. Cases are being closed against us as there is no tracking updates.

We are experiencing pain that will count against us in our global Seller Performance for the next 12 months because a local issue in a small region. Ebay unable to see the localised problem and won't do anything unless they can see tracking updates.

At a loss. Is anyone else experiencing similar issues?

[eol-products]

You can increase handling times but I guess it will be for all destinations. I would state delays may be experienced for customers of countries you have issues with. I would rather not have impatient buyers when shipping international.I recently had a parcel to Portugal take almost a month with 10 days in Australia and 10 days enroute to portugal and a couple of days from customs to delivery. 

[sfor8673]

EU destinations and Latin America destination are always slower than usual because of the Customs and import duties process. Parcels are often delayed in Customs in Eastern Europe, Chile, Brazil, etc. There is a delay because of a manual stoppage by Customs to check the value, contact the buyer, get them to pay Duties, VAT, etc. Ebay does not take into account these delays and it may take some buyers 5-7 days to respond to Customs request for payment before the parcel can resume the journey.

This is the same in Israel, except there is also a high security threat and Customs are vigilent for individual parcel inspections, etc.

We have 100% delivery success rate with no defects for any other region except Israel. Israel is included in the .COM ebay region (North America) when it comes to service standards. Huge delays on >30 parcels in September has smashed our seller service levels.

Ebay refuse to do anything about it. Won't remove the defects from our account as an anomoly considering there is no delays for ANY other region we ship to and almost 60% delays for parcels sent to this 1 region.

DHL advise they have more AU ecommerce sellers experiencing the same issues, but Ebay refuses to assist in any way.

[eol-products]

Don't forget Spain, sent an express pacrel that arrived in customs within a few days then sat for 3-4 weeks while they got around to collecting duties. 

If Israel is worth the sales can you create a listing for just this country with a 20 day handling period to stop disputes opening up early.